The Great Moon Race
Background
In the early 1990s there was a veritable flood of new information coming out of the former Soviet Union about their historically secretive space program. The editor of the Electronic Journal of the Astronomical Society of the Atlantic (EJASA), Larry Klaes, gave me the opportunity to write a series of articles sharing these new revelations. The series, The Great Moon Race, started as a two-part article describing what was then known about the Soviet Union’s recently revealed manned lunar program of the late 1960s and early 1970s. And as more information became available, I extended The Great Moon Race into a series of articles recounting the history of not only the Soviet but also American unmanned lunar exploration programs from the late 1950s to about 1970. The articles were widely circulated on the early internet and were frequently reposted, republished and cited as references in books, articles and on line.
What follows are all the articles in The Great Moon Race series from 1990 to 1994 as well as a final two-part article published in EJASA in 1996 covering the Soviet lunar exploration program after the formal end of the Moon Race in 1969.
Articles
“The Great Moon Race: The Soviet Story (Part 1)”, Electronic Journal of the Astronomical Society of the Atlantic, Volume 2, Number 5, December 1990 [Issue]
“The Great Moon Race: The Soviet Story (Part 2)”, Electronic Journal of the Astronomical Society of the Atlantic, Volume 2, Number 6, January 1991 [Issue]
“The Great Moon Race: New Findings”, Electronic Journal of the Astronomical Society of the Atlantic, Volume 2, Number 9, May 1991 [Issue]
“The Great Moon Race: In the Beginning…”, Electronic Journal of the Astronomical Society of the Atlantic, Volume 3, Number 10, May 1992 [Issue]
“The Great Moon Race: The Commitment”, Electronic Journal of the Astronomical Society of the Atlantic, Volume 4, Number 1, August 1992 [Issue]
“The Great Moon Race: The Long Road to Success”, Electronic Journal of the Astronomical Society of the Atlantic, Volume 4, Number 2, September 1992 [Issue]
“Recent Soviet Lunar and Planetary Program Revelations”, Electronic Journal of the Astronomical Society of the Atlantic, Volume 4, Number 10, May 1993 [Issue]
“The Great Moon Race: The Red Moon”, Electronic Journal of the Astronomical Society of the Atlantic, Volume 4, Number 12, July 1993 [Issue]
“The Great Moon Race: The Tide Turns”, Electronic Journal of the Astronomical Society of the Atlantic, Volume 5, Number 1, August 1993 [Issue]
“The Great Moon Race: The Final Lap”, Electronic Journal of the Astronomical Society of the Atlantic, Volume 5, Number 4, November 1993 [Issue]
“The Great Moon Race: The Finish Line”, Electronic Journal of the Astronomical Society of the Atlantic, Volume 5, Number 12, July 1994 [Issue]
“Ahead of Their Time: The Soviet Lunar Program of the Seventies (Part 1)”, Electronic Journal of the Astronomical Society of the Atlantic, Volume 7, Number 1, January 1996 [Issue]
“Ahead of Their Time: The Soviet Lunar Program of the Seventies (Part 2)”, Electronic Journal of the Astronomical Society of the Atlantic, Volume 7, Number 2, February 1996 [Issue]